Nesting

Despite having yet another sore throat, I made pork satay and bean sprout salad for supper today, and two raspberry pies, one for us and one for the Boy Scouts potluck on Tuesday. I also slept while Pat took the kids tobogganing, which I feel badly about, never enough time. We've decided to finally rip out the old carpets that came with this house, and lay hardwood throughout the main floor and upstairs, tile in the front and back halls. We haven't even ordered the wood yet, and already Pat's torn apart the living room, taken down all the pictures, moved doors around, and re-framed the front hall. He "goes hard". Better than laying around all day in front of the TV, I guess, but it means our home will be chaotic for at least the next two months.

The cocktails I made this weekend were the Apple Sip, for which I boiled, crushed, and strained organic apples as we had no juice, and the Honey Berry Sour. I'm glad I liked the Honey Berry Sour, as it contains Krupnik vodka - I'll have at least one way to use it up. Honey vodka, raspberries, lemon juice. Caleb tries so hard to bond with his dad. We all do.

I'm tired of being sick. It's 8:05 pm and I want nothing more than to go to bed. Jule's painting his birdhouse, though, and Pat and Caleb are watching Olympic hockey, Canada versus the USA.

I always thought I'd be a single person, as an adult, cooking meals for one, arranging my belongings in a quiet bedroom, reading by lamplight, booking flights and taking them, all over the world. But here I am, nesting. Funny how it goes.

Moscow Mule Part 2

Someone was pissed about something, obviously.

Patrick thinks I shouldn't speculate about people's sexual orientations in public, and he's probably right. My point is just that it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter, but to a Mennonite, to much of the Evangelical church, it matters, and it has to be hidden. It was one of my cousins who pointed out that there are tons of middle-aged lesbians in the Mennonite church, but none of them would ever admit to it - instead, once they've passed a reasonable age for marriage, they become missionaries, go off to Africa with other single women to drink tea and teach Sunday School.

Christy is my age, despite being my mother's first cousin (my grandmother's parents had quite a few kids), and I was enamored by her growing up. Her house perched on the edge of the Qu'Appelle Valley near Lumsden; she had a posh white bedroom with a patio door out to the valley, a rec room with bean pillows, a tennis court, a swimming pool, and forts in the forest that she'd built with her brothers. I first tasted an avocado at her house. She had long blonde hair in braids, and took piano lessons. She reminded me of Anne of Green Gables. We played hide-and-go-seek in the dark in her basement. We watched "A Room With a View" together, laughed at the naked men romping around the pond.

I just want her to be content with herself, not afraid. Maybe she is. Read her book, though, and then reassure me: it's called "Widows of Hamilton House." My grandmother was sorry she'd picked it up, wondering why Christy would choose to write about such horrible things: seances and lesbians.

Anyways, about the Moscow Mule - we used to drink Vodka Specials in Saskatchewan, and no one outside of Saskatchewan seems to know what they are - just vodka and lime juice and Sprite, liquid sugar basically. So now at least I know where it comes from. Patrick introduced me to Vodka Specials like he introduced me to rye and Coke, Kokanee, fast cars, Saskatchewan back roads, and work without sleep. Sloshing on the dance floor at City Slickers in Prince Albert, some stranger yelling "Get a room," Jill singing along to "When I think about you, I touch myself," Sheldon, red-faced, not knowing quite what to do. Regina bars, cavernous spaces with long vinyl tables sticky with vodka, Pat's high-school friends, strobe lights - I was a mere six months past legal drinking age when we got married. Pat phoned my parents from a pay phone at Emma Lake the night we got engaged, and instead of "Congratulations," my dad said, "We'll talk." They didn't think he was good enough for me. I would be going off to medical school, meeting all sorts of brilliant, privileged young men. Most people these days would have waited, tried out a few adult relationships before settling. So why did I marry him, at nineteen? Because I wanted to have sex with him, I was ready, but I am Mennonite, and my mother's oldest child. Which is not to say that I shouldn't have, necessarily. He was my first love.

Moscow Mule Part 1

This is the original London Bridge, deconstructed and reconstructed across the ocean in Arizona, spanning Lake Havasu, created by damming the Colorado River.

Desert sky, dream beneath the desert sky, rivers run but soon run dry, we'll need new dreams tonight.

We've been there three times, three summers, and each time the lake has sunk further into the ground, the sun melting us as we cross the bridge looking for food, copper walls of the canyon in the distance. It is impossible to lay outside, walk outside, do anything but swim or stay indoors. I suppose that's why most people head south from Canada during the winter, not the summer.

Las Vegas, California, is just over a month away...

Jule keeps asking to go to the Bahamas. He plans to be an artist when he grows up, and live in the Bahamas. Caleb wants to be a rock star and an actor, and live in Hawaii. It's sad, but chances are they'll change their minds and go to Canadian universities like we all end up doing, become professionals, and slave away at semi-satisfying careers in frozen cities until they're old.

I want to live someplace tropical, someplace beside the water.

I want this, I want that, I want to go to Greece, I want to surf in Portugal, I don't want to do my paperwork, I want to tear down my house and start from scratch. I want my hair to have body, as it does in hot, humid environments. I want to stop getting pimples now that I'm over 30 - it's ridiculous. I am self-centered and cruel. We Mennonites are all so painfully self-conscious, a culture in its adolescence. My grandparents were like babies, obeying their elders, trying to please; my parents rebelled in grandiose ways, then got caught and repented, towed the line; my generation is the first to actually try to find its own way, figure things out, become reasonable adults. We're the teenagers. Maybe our children will be normal, will grow up.

My father's first cousin is Miriam Toews, of "A Complicated Kindness"; I'm convinced that my mother is a minor character in that book. I expect she knows nothing of me, though, as I was not allowed to know my father, as I was conceived out of wedlock. My mother's first cousin, Christina Penner, denies being gay though she just published a novel about a young Mennonite woman who is bisexual and struggles with telling her traditionally religious parents that she is having sex with her dead husband's mother. I wish we would just get over it, just come out with it, just be.

I was going to tell you about the Moscow Mule that I made tonight, a Vodka Special only with ginger ale instead of Sprite, but I have to pick Caleb up from karate, now.

Until tomorrow, then.

From Russia With Love

This was Tuesday evening, post-call. Today I made an Apple Blossom. Both looked very nice but didn't taste like much. "From Russia With Love" is basically cold vodka, with garnishes. Mint and basil muddled with sugar syrup and topped with strawberry vodka, then strained - so mint / basil / strawberry-flavored cold vodka, I guess. Herbal vodka. Why?

I'm drinking red wine instead. For supper, I'm making Mom's stew in the crockpot. We used to eat this lots when we were kids, but I haven't had it for years and years. It's nearly done, and the hot comfortable smell of beef and tomatoes is the smell of a home one would want to cozy up in, eat supper around the big table with one's family, read a novel by the fire. There's not much to this stew, and it will be nothing like Julia Child's "boeuf borgeuron" (??sp), I'm sure, but it smells of the happier days of my childhood, so I love it.

Jule is begging for a turn on the computer. Caleb's begging to skip karate tonight to watch "Malcolm in the Middle". Patrick made chocolate cupcakes for Jule's Valentine's Day party at school tomorrow, and we have to ice them and apply cinnamon hearts. So, I'm off!

I Got Lucky!

I got lucky this weekend. The LCBO in Thunder Bay had a better selection than the liquor store I went to in Winnipeg at New Year's: not only did they have Chambord, and apple brandy, and many flavors of vodka (though not cucumber or pepper), but they had SMALL bottles of creme de cassis, among other things. The lady working there was very friendly, helping me to figure out that Boulard is, in fact, a brandy made in France with more than 120 different varieties of apples, thereby making it an "apple brandy", and telling me how much she loves kirtsch. "Yeah, me too," I said, though I don't think I've ever actually tasted it - but it must be divine, $48.95 for, like, 200 cc's of clear viscous fluid. I was tempted to buy it but it wasn't actually on my list for that day, so held off, and was quite proud of myself for my restraint.

That being said, I did spend over $140 on the liquor you see here. "I'm coming to your house for cocktails," the LCBO lady said as she checked me out. Patrick's getting a bit tired of the big liquor bills, I think, though so far he's refrained from giving me a hard time. He's still enjoying tasting a new cocktail every night or two. Wonder how long that will last?

The LCBO also stocked several varieties of bitters, none of which I have required to date, but I may in future - who knows? And I found a bar supply company online from which I ordered anise bitters and orange bitters and orgeat. I also found a coffee supply company that sells mango and passion fruit syrups, but I didn't order them yet, as their shipping costs are exorbitant. It's bookmarked, though. Also, I learned that passion fruit can be found at most Asian grocery stores. Unfortunately, I was unable to find an Asian grocery store in Thunder Bay, but will definitely be able to get to one in Winnipeg at the end of March. DeLucca's in Winnipeg, a great Italian restaurant, grocery, and wine store might even have some of the syrups I need - and if I'm really lucky, maybe even Mirabelle plum puree?? It sounds Italian... Maltese didn't have it, but Maltese didn't even have figs.

Tonight I celebrated my finds by making three cocktails. Only one of them was really good, but that's about how it goes, right? The Metrotini, with muddled raspberries and blueberries, honey vodka, Chambord, and lemon juice, was sweet and tangy and crisp all at once, a quick cold sip of perfection. The Victory Collins, not so great. Perhaps I should have used white instead of purple grape juice. And the Long Beach Iced Tea (same as Long Island Iced Tea, the old bar special stand-by?) was sort of unpleasant because we only had calorie-reduced cranberry juice and despite the vodka, rum, tequila and triple sec in there, I could still taste the aspartame.

We had great steaks from Maltese and insalata caprese for dinner, baklava for dessert, a very satisfying meal. I am over-full again. Too many cocktails before dinner, the likely problem. No, wait, that's not true - I had only a sip of the V.C., and maybe half of the Long Beach Iced Tea... oh, and I forgot about those stuffed potato appetizers leftover in my freezer from the Christmas baking exchange. They were quite filling, too.

It was a good weekend in Thunder Bay, between getting my hair done and watching "Avatar" in 3D and swimming this morning at the Day's Inn, our dinner at Giorg's last night, the food nothing amazing but the kids well-behaved and a bottle of wine that was mediocre but not undrinkable. This afternoon Caleb's friend came over to work on a project and we walked her home; it was snowing again, and not too cold.

Too bad I'm on call tomorrow and also next weekend, and will see my family very little this week. I can hardly wait for the end of March, when we go to Las Vegas and California. I booked a surf lesson for myself and Caleb with Surf Diva in La Jolla, and if we enjoy it, we can rent boards and wetsuits for 4 hours the next day and surf again. The flying scenes in "Avatar" reminded me of surfing - the same sort of really living. If I was 26 instead of 36, minus the massive med school debt, maybe I'd join the clan.

Mmm... Fresca

Crazy Lutsen Mountains, where the chairlifts without safety bars careen across the road and parking lots. Last year it was so warm when we were there that we were skiing on slush by early afternoon. This year we had a day and a half of perfect weather before it began pouring rain, soaking us in our ski jackets, turning the runs into slides.

We were rather grumpy in Lutsen two weekends ago, despite our great room, lovely indoor-outdoor pool, and good ski conditions, Patrick upset that he was about to turn forty, me upset because he was upset and snapping at the kids about wanting to play video games all day. The book I was reading, "Shutter Island", didn't help my mood. Now I'm reading "The Lovely Bones" - much more cheerful.

Did I mention that I've lost a ridiculous amount of weight for no apparent reason since the fall? I eat continuously and hardly exercise. Right now I feel overly full from chicken wings and rice and peas and salad, as well as a few bites of beans and three crackers with cream cheese and papaya-flavored red pepper jelly, and half a grapefruit and a Fresca, my cocktail of the day: pink grapefruit segments, brown sugar, vodka and lemonade. I may do some sit-ups. I may do some jumping jacks. Or I may just search for passion fruit syrup online... I'm hoping to find a few more exotic ingredients this weekend in Thunder Bay, possibly at Maltese, a great Italian grocery store. Also I'm hoping the liquor store there carries Chambord. It sounded like a basic to me, so I checked in Atikokan, but was told it's too expensive to sell here. Nobody but broke rednecks in this town, apparently.

I think I just discovered, via Facebook, that my best friend from grade one to grade eight has moved from Manitoba to Tofino, where she works as a nurse. I have yet to clarify that impression - but if it's true, that means I've had yet another dream predicting the future, and possibly means that we should move to the Pacific Rim as well, where the surfing is amazing, the lakes and mountains unbelievably beautiful, dark swaths of trees plunging down to green water. As we drove past Sproat Lake last summer on the way to my cousin's wedding, I thought - why aren't we living here? It's perfect. At the dawn of the world, in the race for spots to set up shelter, wouldn't everyone rush to this one? There are houses for sale here now - why wouldn't I buy one and perch on this lakeshore for the rest of my life? And then I discovered surfing, the key to bonding with the ocean properly, the missing link! To hell with sailing, swimming, kayaking; they are nothing compared with cutting through the waves on a surf board, turning yourself around, and catching the tide back to shore - in, and on, and up, and down, the ocean in your throat, and doing it again, syncing your rhythm with the rhythm of the earth. After two hours I can't say I achieved that epiphany, exactly, but I was close, I could taste it in all its salty glory. I wanted to rearrange my life around it.

So we've been lusting after Vancouver Island again. In my dream, Nadine and I lived and worked in a big old house filled with invalids, on a hill above the sea. We would walk to the grocery store in the evening; it was dark and dangerous, crossing the train tracks, carrying our bags; it was a rough town. The store was rich with specialty goods, though, catering to tourists. I was excited to be there, figuring things out. I get so restless sometimes, living in just one place week after week, month after month.

That being said, we do have a great house in a beautiful spot, and work here is good, and I should just settle down and read a book and maybe put in hardwoods, paint, change things without throwing them apart completely, for once in my life.

Larry and Bono and a Dry Martini

Dry martini... a classic. Larry and Bono... also classic. I'm getting excited about the U2 concert in Edmonton in June, can hardly wait to snuggle into my sleeping bag in the Commonwealth Stadium parking lot at midnight, hopefully #100 or less in line. I'm so afraid that something will happen, Bono assassinated, Edge's daughter ill again, that will prevent the 2010 leg of the tour from proceeding as planned. Also, will June be enough? Will I have to go to Rome in the fall as well?

Caleb and I saw U2 in Chicago in September; it was devastating; we paid $500 for first-tier seats which should have been terrific, but we were stuck behind a concrete pillar, that blocked our views of the band, the claw, and the sky, as well as about 90% of the sound. I had a dream about that pillar the night before, knew it would be awful. Did I talk about this here already? I had been a bit anxious in the weeks leading up to September 12th; that night as I slept I plummeted into depression, was unable to look up or move or speak for weeks. I started back on Celexa and thank God, I got better, and October in Las Vegas was amazing, everything I could have hoped for short of the Bono-dance, or heaven. I took this picture... Larry and the man himself, like, three feet in front of my face!

Now that Patrick's forty he's worried that I'll leave him for a younger man - but I've never found young men all that interesting. I'm more one for crushes on old rock stars, and uncles, wise experienced colleagues, guitar teachers, professors - people who can teach me something, whose respect I hope to earn.

The only other time I suffered a dry martini, gin and vermouth and an olive, was at the casino in Moose Jaw, with Patrick. We were alone at the spa for a night, our kids with their grandparents in Weyburn. We gambled $40 and came out $20 ahead, and bought martinis to celebrate, which we choked down. I wondered if that was actually what it was supposed to taste like... I think it might have been warm or otherwise off (too much vermouth?) because tonight's was definitely doable, if not exactly Holy Water.

I need more lemons and limes.